640 Words for a 500-Word Report: Cutting and Reordering for a Board
You are finishing the crafted-writing piece for your Level 2 portfolio: a report of about 500 words to your school's Board of Trustees about canteen packaging waste. You surveyed 60 students; 41 said they would pay 50 cents more for compostable packaging, 12 said they would not, and 7 did not answer. Your draft is 640 words. It opens: 'I think plastic is a huge problem in the world today.' You use 'I' 14 times. Paragraph three is 140 words describing your own visit to the landfill. The board meets on Tuesday and the chair has told your class that anything over three pages is not read. Your teacher has set the acceptable band at 450-550 words, and the survey numbers must stay accurate.
1. Restructure the report. State the sentence you would open with, and decide what happens to the 140-word landfill paragraph.
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A report for a decision-making body runs in the opposite order to an essay. The board's question is 'what are we being asked to approve, and what does it cost?' - so answer that first.
Opening sentence: 'The canteen could replace single-use plastic packaging with compostable packaging at a cost of about 50 cents per item, and 41 of the 60 students I surveyed said they would pay it.' One sentence carrying the recommendation, the cost and the strongest number.
The landfill paragraph goes. At 140 words it is 22 per cent of a 640-word report spent on a point the board already accepts (waste is a problem) rather than the point it will contest (cost and student appetite). Cut it or compress it to a clause: 'Students see the waste at the tip themselves.' Keep the survey numbers, the date and the sample size, and put the limitation - 12 students would not pay - immediately after the headline figure. Do not bury a real objection at the end; boards read for risk.
2. Diagnose the opening sentence and rewrite it. Then say which uses of 'I' you keep and which you delete, with reasons.
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Two things are wrong. 'I think' frames the sentence as personal opinion, which invites the board to weigh your temperament rather than your evidence; a report makes claims and shows its basis. 'Huge problem' is an unquantified evaluative adjective: huge compared with what, and known how?
Rewrite: 'The canteen sells an estimated 400 packaged items a week, almost all in single-use plastic (my count, four lunchtimes, Week 4).'
On 'I': delete it where it marks opinion ('I think', 'I believe', 'I feel'); keep it where it marks agency and method ('I counted', 'I surveyed 60 students'). Those uses are not informal - they are how a reader checks your evidence. Fourteen uses is not a register problem in itself. Three or four method-marking uses plus one hedge for an estimate is good practice. What fails is 'I' used as a substitute for evidence.
3. You must reach 450-550 words. Give the order of your cuts, and state what you refuse to cut even if you run over.
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Order the cuts by words saved per unit of damage.
- The landfill paragraph: 140 words down to about 20, or out. Saves roughly 120. Damage low - it is illustrative, not load-bearing.
- Throat-clearing and intensifiers: 'very', 'really', 'in my opinion', 'it is important to note that'. In a draft this length that is usually 40-60 words. Damage: none.
- The conclusion, which almost certainly restates the introduction. Cut to two lines, saving 60-80.
That is about 220-260 words, landing near 380-420 - under the band - so you then reinstate a sentence of evidence rather than running short.
Refuse to cut: the 41/12/7 split, the 50-cent figure, the sample size and date, and the recommendation. Cutting data to hit a word count inverts the task: you are assessed on shaping material for an audience, and a report that drops its evidence to fit is not shaped, it is trimmed.